Visioning group walks downtown

COLDWATER — More than 30 people turned out Wednesday evening for a walking tour of downtown Coldwater, followed by a a BATA tour around the Second Ward.

This was part of an on-going process under a grant to get the community to look at itself before the Coldwater Planning Commission begins revising its master plan.

Holly Madill of Michigan Association of Planning said she and Harry Burkholder of the Land Information Access Association will draft a final report "of a vision for moving toward a master plan." The concept is to look at the city in ways that might not take place otherwise.

As the grant explained, "integrated approaches to community building devolved into a series of separate functions. This project seeks to reintegrate those functions that have become disconnected, so that we can refocus on building the elements of a community that are most valuable to its residents."

This model planning process incorporates the foundations of three disciplines — planning, transportation and redevelopment.

Madill asked those participating to look at a "place" not just as a location but as what the community wants to happen at the location.

"It is not physical but an activity center," she said."The more functions a place has the more powerful it is."

In individual interviews and meetings in March and April with local "stakeholders," Madill said the community focuses on recreation and "a family-based community."

The grant is to develop a model program in community planning awarded by the Michigan Association of Planning in partnership with the C.S. Mott Foundation and the Michigan State Housing Development Authority.

Community participation is important to evaluate existing transportation, roads and trials.

That second workshop about Connecting Places or transportation and access is scheduled for May 29 from 5:30-8:30 p.m. at Community Health Center Conference Center at 370 E. Chicago Street. The public is invited.